Question: What iconic animal went extinct on Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean that's astonishingly rich in locally endemic -- and critically endangered -- species?

Answer: The Dodo

Question: What famous animal in Mauritius is currently being severely persecuted?

Answer: The Mauritian flying fox

Here, an anonymous observer from Mauritius tells us the story of the Mauritian flying fox -- an endemic species that plays key ecological roles as a seed disperser and pollinator -- but that's facing wholesale slaughter in the only place on Earth where it occurs.

After years on the back-burner (see here and here), the Government of Mauritius is now culling its threatened and protected species of flying fox (Pteropus niger).

The culling started two weeks ago, on November 7.

The decision to cull 18,000 of these rare bats was announced on October 6. However, there was a complication: the bat was a protected species.

No problem. Just two weeks later, a new biodiversity law was passed to provide "better protection of native biodiversity".

The new law allows wildlife to be killed "in exceptional circumstances and where human life or national interest prevail". Hmmm. If your eyes are rolling you are not alone.

Critical pollinator and seed disperser for lots of endangered plant species

The Government declared that its "bold and unpopular" decision was made to protect strategic locations such as the airport. However, that's not the real reason the bats are being slaughtered. They are dying because they're perceived to damage backyard fruit trees.

A recent study shows that a lot more fruits are lost to natural causes (13-29 percent), than to bats (3-11 percent) or birds (1-8 percent), at least for mangoes and lychee fruits in orchards. A government report claims that bats actually are a serious pest for lychees -- but, conveniently, that report isn't publicly available.

Getting bats to avoid fruit trees is easy, by putting nets over the trees. And tree pruning is an easy way to increase fruit yield. But backyard owners don't want to be bothered; it's easier to just kill the bats.

The agri-industry of Mauritius provides just 3.2 percent of the nation's GDP, and a lot of that is crops that bats don't eat, such as sugarcane and pineapples, the leading export fruit.

With so many urgent and bigger problems facing the government, how important is a major cull of these rare flying foxes?

Among developing nations, Mauritius is relatively wealthy and has a thriving ecotourism industry. In an age in which many expect conservation decisions to be based on evidence, Mauritius has decided to blatantly disregard the advice of the scientific community and the many alternatives to reduce flying-fox conflicts (for more on this sordid tale, see here, here, and here).

Things are heating up in India. ALERT member Priya Davidar and her colleague Jean-Philippe Puyravaud provide this perspective on a key conservation issue there. Their focus is a plan to reconnect fragmented rainforests in the Western Ghats--some of the most biologically important real estate in India.

Prime real estate... rainforests of the Western Ghats (photo by William Laurance)

We congratulate the Karnataka Forest Department for this initiative, but this information has not been made public in India. Where there have been initiatives to add forests to the protected-area network, it is not at the scale indicated in the article. Given the high price of land in India, the suggested plan would cost billions of dollars, far more than the entire budget of India's Ministry of Environment and Forests.

At present, the protected-area “network” in Karnataka is chopped up by highways, pipelines, dams, railroad tracks, and human settlements. Wild elephants are dying there because they can't access water in the dry season. Parks and reserves are under enormous pressure from fuelwood harvesting, cattle grazing, pollution, plant invasion, violent fires, poaching, and unmanaged tourism. In some national parks, the tourism pressure is so high that connectivity within the protected areas themselves is threatened.

Parks under pressure... fuelwood harvesting in India (photo by William Laurance)

The BBC article comes at the same time that a proposed high-tension power line would slice through forests in the heart of the “secure forest network”, from Mysore to Kozhikode. This project would be followed by a four-lane highway and railway line. Funds have been sanctioned for surveys on these projects without considering alternative routes or proper environmental impact assessments.

The bottom line: Optimism about the proposed Karnataka Corridor needs to be tempered with caution. These vital forests are far from secure and there are many challenges ahead.

It's fair to fret about such things, but a new study suggests otherwise. At least in Costa Rica, ecotourism is good for nature and helps local people--a lot.

Start 'em young (photo by William Laurance)

Those are the conclusions of a study just published in the top-flight journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Economists Paul Ferraro and Merlin Hanauer found that local communities near Costa Rican conservation areas had considerably lower poverty than those in other locations. They attribute most of the benefit to ecotourism, despite the fact that deforestation was reduced near reserves.

Overall, the authors concluded that two-thirds of the poverty reduction associated with protected areas results from tourism.